Future of u. S. Diplomacy. After that, a forum on the effectiveness of alqaeda in yemen. A former state Department Officials from the obama and george w. Bush administrations discuss Public Diplomacy in a tough budget in vermont. The discuss the effectiveness of Student Exchange programs and governmentbacked broadcasting outlets, like voice of america. The George Washington school of International Affairs hosted this event tuesday. This is an hour and 45 minutes. That is Public Diplomacy in action. [laughter] im a professor here at gw and the director of the institute for Public Policy and global communication. You can find us on twitter ip dgc. Were also on facebook. Were hosting a conversation on twitter about this event, hashtag ipdgc. What i will do to get as a rolling here is give a brief introduction and bio for our great panel here, and then get going into the discussion. We have a great with a lot of interesting people in the room. We need to leave time for discussion. First we have james glassman. Executive director of the george w. Bush institute. After a long career in journalism, he served as undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Prior to his Department Post from june 2007june 2008, he was chairman of the broadcasting board of governors. That is something we will be discussing today. Judith mchale is the former undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. She served from 2009 until just recently, 20112012. Until 2011. Thank you. Before that she was general counsel for mtv networks. Paul foldi, from 19902003, served as a u. S. Diplomat in the department of state, working at the u. S. Mission in pakistan and nicaragua and various offices in each berman. Congressional liaison for the u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations john negroponte. Senator joe bidens Foreign Relations committee. He joined senator Richard Lugar where he served as the expert. P. J. Crowley served as assistant secretary of state for Public Affairs in 2009. The assistant secretary and spokesman of the department of state until march 2011. Hes currently a fellow at the institute for public politick Public Policy here at gw. Special assistant to the president of United States for nationalsecurity affairs, staff of the National Security council, Principal Deputy for Public Affairs. Air force, retired with rank of colonel in september 2009. I want to get started going back four years. The inauguration of barack obama. A lot was made at the time about how, at least on one side of the aisle, barack obama was a walking, talking example of Public Diplomacy in action. He was going to change americas perception in the world, and to all these wonderful things like clothes Guantanamo Bay and and torture. He went out close Guantanamo Bay and end torture. Four years later, opinion of america and things american have improved here and there, but certainly not to the degree that i think a lot of people, including people in the administration expected going into this period of time. If you look at the few global Pew Global Attitudes index, opinion of the United States is in negative co territory for every country they serve it in the middle east, also china, it india. Also india. The things that the rest of the world likes about america are movies, tv, science, technology. Theyre not keen on democracy as america preaches it. Heading into another four years of the Obama Administration, where are we, and why are we here, and how do we get somewhere else . What went wrong, what is going right, and what to do about it Going Forward . First of all, i do not think that Favorability Ratings and the pew surveys of evidence of whether were doing something wrong or right. I think it is a huge mistake for anybody who practices Public Diplomacy to think that his or her job is to win a popularity contest. Well i guess maybe some of us who were in the Bush Administration can take a certain pleasure in effect in 2008, the Favorability Ratings for the United States were higher in four out of the five surveyed arab countries i am not even going to bring that up. [laughter] and it is a big mistake. In my view, and what i tried to do during my short tenure as undersecretary, is try to focus attention on what Public Diplomacy can do to achieve specific ends that are part of their goals in Foreign Policy and National Security policy. That is what Public Diplomacy is supposed to do. If everybody loved us, it may be easier to achieve those goals. It is hard to get everybody to love us. It is a longterm project. It is much important, as president obama said in the very beginning, that we need to focus on mutual interests and mutual respect. There are many things that we can get done in that fashion. I think the Public Diplomacy needs to focus on achieving specific, strategic goals. Public diplomacy has failed in the last several decades when it has not focused on those goals. I am in agreement with jim on this issue. It is not a popularity contest. I am not just saying that. I think one of the things so we try to do, building on the base that jim and his team have put in place, was to be sure that everything we were doing in Public Diplomacy was designed to support the achievement of those goals and objectives to be very clear and precise in doing that. There are many areas where we do where we have we find areas of common interest, science, technology. Education, all those areas, even in countries where we have a difficult and challenging time, i have found that people were anxious to continue to have that conversation with us. We were constantly looking for ways, where are those avenues that are open that we can pursue. At the end of the day, to the extent we can expand and build Mutual Understanding between the people of our country and the people of countries around the world, we will be able to go down a more productive pat in the future. In the understatement of the morning, it is obviously very complicated. It is a complicated world in which we operate. Things are changing very dramatically. For us as a country, one of the things i have found there are many obstacles youre going to encounter just by virtue of the fact that you are the last standing. When you are the last superpower, naturally are going to encounter a lot of resistance. That is no reason to give up. To look for those avenues were you can pursue those conversations, where you can build relationships even in very difficult and challenging parts of the world. You do not ignore the research. You actually see that. You look at it. That should not be the measurement. Nonetheless, while we will always be jealous because there will be something that a particular country for example, indians have expectations issues because there will be something that a particular country use it in between those two longtime antagonists, youre going to end up disappointing both of them to some degree or another. One of the great challenges for Public Diplomacy is to bring the gap between words and deeds, to narrow that to the extent possible. Public opinion polling is not the beall, endall, but it is a barometer that you need to Pay Attention to. Only as you make sure there is a Public Diplomacy to mention in the policy making progress process, which is one of the the great challenges that all of us have worked in. Do we take into account what global expectations are for the United States as the lone superpower, and that enters into our thinking about how effective a particular policy will be. Youre on a bit of a roller coaster. The challenge for barack obama was a expectations were so high coming into office. In year one, your two, year two, there was a restoration of confidence in the United States. Predictably, as we made a run at peace between israelis and palestinians, in one part of the world there has been a corresponding disappointment when the attempt failed last year. We have to actually do both. We have to be focused on the longterm. That is a significant element of Public Policy. We have to Pay Attention to trends, and that should inform what are shortterm and the term actions are. A want to thank you for that question. I want to thank you for that question. I am here representing myself. But my words are mine. It reminds me of the difficulty we have in the field of Public Diplomacy. We do not have an agreed upon definition of Public Diplomacy. I always compare to, we never own definition of god and of Public Diplomacy. What you were describing is also Strategic Communications, which can be a much more shortterm, resultsoriented campaign, rather than Public Diplomacy which can take years. It could take years to get what i call the benefit of the doubt, which is the goal of Public Diplomacy so that when your country does something or has a policy that seems counterintuitive to the rest of the world, they go, theyre in demand states, for the most part we agree with them theyre in the United States. For the most part, we agree with them. Can we get back into the benefit of the doubt category with these countries. Is it possible to get the benefit of the doubt is it possible to get the benefit of the doubt and significant portions of the world where we have immediate interest with a Drone Program . Excellent question. [laughter] i am going to go maybe. The Drone Program has challenges. From the american perspective, this is great. Clear not putting peoples people in harms way. I am not sure we understand the consequences that the Drone Program currently has in those countries where it is impacting. That is a maybe. Let me ask ambassador glassman and ms. Mchale the same thing. From your perspective in your old jobs as undersecretaries, both of you came in in large part because of what you did when you were there, into a position that that job was one that had a lot more a lot more effort, with the approach to put Public Diplomacy at the takeoffs. That is of the thats started before the nine obama add the administration that is of the that started before the Obama Administration, too. Would you be counseling the administration, or how would you structure Public Diplomacy given the reality of the Drone Program and what is at least now the National Security policy of United States . I know it was. During hughes who got that seed at the table. That was part of i know it was karen hughes who got that seat at the table. What Public Policy can do, being part of the takeoff and not just the crash landings, but we can do is say, if you have a strong program, it may be a great idea, but understand that a lot of people are going to be angry when innocent people are killed or maybe even when noninnocent people are killed. That is about it. I guess i could argue that is a terrible idea to start with. To bring about some of the costs are as well as to bring up what some of the costs are as well as the benefits. The big problem we ran into all the time was that innocent people were killed. Even when they were not killed, our enemies were saying that they were killed. We had to be very responsive, very quick on the draw and say, here is what really happened. But then we could not even admit that we were using drugs. That made it kind of difficult drones. That made it kind of difficult. I always felt that Public Diplomacy, even if youre in on the takeoff, youre not going to necessarily change the policy. The policy is a given, and your job is in this case to mitigate the effects of the policy as much as you can. Maybe this is not the time, but i have come to the conclusion that explaining and arguing how we did not kill that many people barbara did not kill any people is not very effective. It is not really or we did not kill any people is not very effective. I think i was still under secretary, i stopped explain. I do not think and stop explaining. I cannot explain it works very well. I do not think explaining works very well. That gets them more riled up. Maybe this is not the time to go into that. I am not sure how effective you can be. The most difficult needle we have to thread of Public Diplomacy, the apparent conflict between our core American Values and some of our Strategic Interests. You do not want to get into a debate with someone about, we only killed two kids, not three. It is not a productive way to do that. It is very difficult for people to understand. It is difficult for citizens in our country to understand many of the things as we do. There is this tension between our National Security interests and our core American Values. I think all the you can do, and what we were trying to do to continue to strengthen those relationships to have a better understanding of all the dimensions of our country and its society and the benefits with it and to find those avenues with the longterm view that you are building strong relationships. Even if you have the best relationship in the world with any country, therell be moments in time when your Strategic Interests are going to divert from theirs. That will be very difficult. You cannot avoid it. You have a simplistic view of the world if you think that is going to happen. In terms of Public Diplomacy having a seat at the table, what i believe is that it is important as policies are being debated and liberated, that they be informed by an understanding of how those policies may impact the people in particular in the country. That is critically important, the way the world is now changing. Traditional power paradigm is two or three people at the top, debating how the things are going to go. It is imported for our government and governments ever were to understand how their decisions are going to be received by broader society. You do not design a policy in response to Public Opinion in a particular country. That is not aware going to do. At least as those policies that is not what were going to do. At least in those policies, know what the impact of those policies are going to be. Things may be able to be changed to make what were otherwise unpalatable decisions somewhat more palatable to a broader population. That is the key role, and that is what we were trying to do with the organizational changes that we implemented at the state department with the new Deputy Assistant secretary of state positions we put in, to be sure that when those policies are being debated and decided upon, they had the benefit of the information so that it was informed of fraud by what potential impact would be. Did not want to be in a position where you would go and do something, then it would be received very negatively and everyone would be going, how come we did not know about that, or if we had known about it, we might have time did differently or communicated it differently. It is critically important to be there at the table up front to inform the policy makers. Sean, drones are a perfect example of the problem of Public Diplomacy. Icet Strategic Communication as a key element of Public Diplomacy. As the state department i see Strategic Communication as a key element of Public Diplomacy. Drones are a weapon. A weapon of choice in the war against alqaeda, the war against terror. They are currently being used for a tactical purpose, a very beneficial tactical purpose. Yet Public Diplomacy has to be strategic. The co